Environmental news feed

- Indigenous Awyu tribal members in Papua lambasted a court decision that effectively greenlights palm oil company PT Indo Asiana Lestari’s plans to raze 26,326 hectares (65,000 acres) of primary forest that sit on ancestral lands.- If developed in full, the project would replace 280,000 hectares (692,000 acres) of the third-largest stretch of rainforest on the planet with several contiguous oil palm estates run by various companies.- The impending deforestation would subsequently release at least 23 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, which is 5% of Indonesia’s estimated annual carbon emissions.

- With an economy largely underpinned by irrigated crops like rice, water is a crucial resource in Thailand. But as climate change exacerbates floods and droughts in the country, sustainable water management is an increasing challenge.- Nature-based solutions that incorporate the natural processes of the country’s abundant rivers, floodplains and watershed forests are beginning to be trialed via various projects at large and small scales.- A new report assesses the efficacy of two nature-based approaches to water management in Thailand, which represent a step away from the country’s typically top-down, hard-engineering approach and present several benefits to the environment and communities.- However, environmental and societal tradeoffs, complex policy frameworks, and the need for greater understanding and expertise around the concept, design and implementation of nature-based approaches are barriers to their widespread implementation.

- An NGO report and complaints by villagers allege a Chinese company has been mining gold inside one of Cambodia’s largest protected areas years before it was license to do so.- Late Cheng Mining Development was awarded an exploratory license in March 2020 spanning 15,100 hectares (37,300 acres) inside Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary, and an extraction license in September 2022.- Local villagers say the company has likely been operating in the region since early 2019; villagers who spoke to Mongabay requested anonymity, citing fears of reprisals from the authorities.- A report by the Bruno Manser Fonds and testimony from locals also allege the company’s mining activities risk contaminating waterways that villagers rely on.

- The pursuit of cleaner sources of energy could lead to the destruction of a biodiversity hotspot of global significance — the ‘Galapagos of Asia’ — a new analysis argues.- Communities on Sibuyan Island have opposed mining for over 50 years but need decisive action from the government to safeguard their forests and rivers via a permanent mining ban.- Demand for nickel and other ‘energy transition metals’ is set to increase, requiring long-term planning and rigorous, independent and participatory assessment of environmental & social impacts.- This post is an analysis. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

- Iracambi is a Brazilian NGO in the Serra do Brigadeiro mountain range, located in the heart of the Atlantic Forest, a biome largely destroyed by rampant deforestation.- Leveraging partnerships with local schools and communities, Iracambi hopes to replant 1 million native trees by 2030 and restore the lost Atlantic Forest; 250,000 trees have already been planted.- The Serra do Brigadeiro region has the second-largest reserve of bauxite in Brazil, attracting mining interests to the region.- Relentless activism swayed a prospecting mining company to invest in important social development projects in the region, but activists remain concerned about the possible impacts mining will have on the environment and small producers’ livelihoods.

- A severe drought across the Amazon Rainforest continues to be felt along the Tapajós River in Brazil’s state of Pará, where locals say it “is the worst one ever.”- The Tapajós River has suffered from the lowest water level ever recorded, reaching 94 centimeters (37 inches) — 38 cm (15 in) below the level recorded in the same period of the year in 2010 during the historic drought.- The long, dry period has sparked a record number of fires in the state of Pará, covering the region in thick clouds of smoke.- Riverside communities have been cut off by low river levels, and experts say the drought could impact fish populations for the next three years.

- Mongabay has begun publishing a new edition of the book, “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon,” in short installments and in three languages: Spanish, English and Portuguese.- Author Timothy J. Killeen is an academic and expert who, since the 1980s, has studied the rainforests of Brazil and Bolivia, where he lived for more than 35 years.- Chronicling the efforts of nine Amazonian countries to curb deforestation, this edition provides an overview of the topics most relevant to the conservation of the region’s biodiversity, ecosystem services and Indigenous cultures, as well as a description of the conventional and sustainable development models that are vying for space within the regional economy.- Click the “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon” link atop this page to see chapters 1-13 as they are published during 2023 and 2024.

- Indonesia is scheduled to enforce a new fisheries policy at the start of the new year, but new reports have highlighted persistent inadequacies in the strategy.- The office of the Indonesian Ombudsman says the quota-based fisheries management policy in general lacks accountability and transparency, including broader consultation with fishing communities.- A separate report from Destructive Fishing Watch (DFW) Indonesia, an NGO, similarly found that many fishers had very limited awareness of the regulation changes and that existing fisheries infrastructure was inadequate to support the new strategy.- Both organizations have called on the fisheries ministry to boost its efforts in public outreach about the new policy and ensure infrastructural readiness at all levels of government in the short time remaining before the policy goes into force.

- In the Brazilian Amazon, between 15 and 18% of the areas most overlooked by research are at high risk of severe climate and land-use changes by 2050, according to a new study.- Analyzing data from more than 7,500 locations surveyed between 2010-2020, the study looked at the role of logistics and human presence in determining which areas of the Brazilian Amazon get studied, and at the challenges to expanding research to more remote areas.- The study suggests that creating new research centers in less-studied areas and working with Indigenous communities would help boost research efforts in underrepresented sites.

- Researchers carried out a massive survey in the Brazilian Amazon for so-called annual rivulids, a family of fish whose eggs survive in a hibernation state during drought and then hatch when it rains — a phenomenon that’s earned them the name “fish from the clouds.”- There are 200 species of annual rivulids in Brazil, nearly half of which are at risk of extinction; their fragile ecosystems — ponds, swamps and marshes — are highly vulnerable to infrastructure works like highways, ports and hydroelectric dams.- Little studied in the Amazon, these species are subjected to stress brought on by human occupation; three new endemic species discovered during the expedition live in the Belo Monte hydropower dam’s area of influence.- The survival of annual rivulids could be guaranteed by environmental licensing laws, but proposed legislation currently in the Senate could weaken those guidelines.

- Protecting the Peruvian Amazon is dangerous work, but conservationist Paul Rosolie and his nonprofit Junglekeepers team have attracted millions of dollars in funding to protect 55,000 acres of rainforest in the country’s Madre de Dios region.- Rosolie first received international recognition via his 2014 memoir, “Mother of God: An Extraordinary Journey in the Uncharted Tributaries of the Western Amazon.”- Today, he runs both a nonprofit and an ecotourism service that employs and is co-led by local and Indigenous people.- In this podcast episode, Rosolie reflects on his decade-plus journey to today and shares his recipe for conservation success.

- Traditional healers from Nepal’s Himalayas are trying to preserve Sowa Rigpa, an ancient medicinal system based on ethnobotany, which has been gradually disappearing as youths move to urban areas and the species used in medicinal formulas are at risk.- Sowa Rigpa includes traditional knowledge of the properties of hundreds of endemic species and local varieties of plants, fungi and lichens, as well as dozens of types of minerals.- Two associations of Sowa Rigpa healers are trying to get the medicinal practice officially recognized by the Nepali government as a way to protect it, and are seeking official medical licenses for new practitioners.- The healers, known as amchi, are partnering with a university, NGO and the government to further research, conserve and find potential substitutes for threatened plant and animal species used in Sowa Rigpa.

- Mongabay has begun publishing a new edition of the book, “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon,” in short installments and in three languages: Spanish, English and Portuguese.- Author Timothy J. Killeen is an academic and expert who, since the 1980s, has studied the rainforests of Brazil and Bolivia, where he lived for more than 35 years.- Chronicling the efforts of nine Amazonian countries to curb deforestation, this edition provides an overview of the topics most relevant to the conservation of the region’s biodiversity, ecosystem services and Indigenous cultures, as well as a description of the conventional and sustainable development models that are vying for space within the regional economy.- Click the “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon” link atop this page to see chapters 1-13 as they are published during 2023 and 2024.

- The municipality of Feijó in Acre state is the first in Brazil to receive a certification of origin for its açaí berries, raising hopes that the economy centered around the fruit will grow in value.- A success the world over, açaí is a multimillion-dollar product that has shown how developing an Amazonian bioeconomy can keep the rainforest standing.- Local communities and experts say they hope that training, research and support for production will help to consolidate the production chain to benefit producers and grow the local economy.

- Peru’s state intervention against illegal gold mining in the Madre de Dios region succeeded in halting the activity for a couple of years, pushing miners into concessions allowing mining, according to recent research.- Operation Mercury, which ran between 2019-2020, led to the abandonment of almost all targeted illegal mining sites in La Pampa, an area found in the buffer zone of a major national park.- But while there’s been some forest regeneration in the affected areas since then, this has been undone by even higher rates of deforestation in the legal mining areas where the miners have moved into.- Experts also say the effort has been unsustainable, as law enforcement in the area has waned and miners have started to come back, with the COVID-19 pandemic playing a major role in cutting enforcement budgets.

- Insects have been incredibly successful in developing ways of flying, with an ultra-fast flapping mode that scientists thought had evolved multiple times over history.- Now, researchers have genetically traced that mode back to a common ancestor, a major breakthrough in understanding insect flight evolution.- To confirm their findings, the researchers built a moth-sized robot that mimicked the various ways insects take to the sky.

- Indonesia’s newly revised plan for a $20 billion clean energy transition has come under criticism for offering “false solutions” that would effectively cancel out any gains it promises.- One of its most controversial proposals is to not count emissions from off-grid coal-fired power plants that supply industrial users without feeding into the grid.- Emissions from these so-called captive plants alone would exceed any emissions reductions projected under the rest of the Just Energy Transition Partnership.- The plan also puts a heavy emphasis on “false” renewables solutions such as biomass cofiring and replacing diesel generators with natural gas ones.

- If ocean shipping were a country, it would be the sixth-largest carbon emitter, eclipsing Germany, so the International Maritime Organization recently set targets to reduce shipping’s 1 billion tons of annual emissions in order to reach zero by 2050.- International shipping accounts for about 2.2% of all global greenhouse gas emissions, plus 40% of all cargo carried by these ships is oil, gas, and coal, making shippers a key cog in the global fossil fuel supply chain.- “I call on the COP presidency [to] include all global polluters in any agreement on phasing out fossil fuels, even those far out at sea,” a new op-ed states.- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

- A report from funders of a $1.7 billion pledge to support Indigenous peoples and local communities’ land rights made at the 2021 U.N. climate conference found that 48% of the financing was distributed.- The findings also show that only 2.1% of the funding went directly to Indigenous peoples and local communities, despite petitions to increase direct funding for their role in combating climate change and biodiversity loss.- This is down from the 2.9% of direct funding that was disbursed in 2021.- Both donors and representatives of Indigenous and community groups call for more direct funding to these organizations by reducing the obstacles they face, improving their capacity, and respecting traditional knowledge systems.

- A new traceability program will keep tabs on the millions of cattle present throughout the state of Pará, in northern Brazil, where the Amazon Rainforest has been hit especially hard by deforestation from cattle ranching.- The tagging program aims to monitor all transported cattle transported through the state by December 2025 and the permanent herd of approximately 24 million cattle by December 2026.- The program was created last week through a decree signed by Pará governor Helder Barbalho following the introduction of the Leaders Declaration on Food Systems, Agriculture and Climate Action at COP28, the annual UN climate conference.